


And Death Shall Have No Dominion

by aflaminghalo



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 19:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2593292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflaminghalo/pseuds/aflaminghalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Grayson could be sent for, he’d decided, then maybe he could have the triumphal homecoming he deserved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Death Shall Have No Dominion

 

"I don't understand."

Damian looked evenly at his father. Bruce sighed, his big body slumping. He knelt to look his son in the eyes.

Even though Damian had been home only a short time, he’d noticed his father had not been as happy as he should have been. He held himself tighter than usual, Damian had noticed, things were weighing on him; things, which if they were taking his father’s attention, had to be resolved as quickly as possible. If Grayson could be sent for, he’d decided, then maybe he could have the triumphal homecoming he deserved until his father was able to focus his attention in the correct places.

When he’d suggested this however, everything had come unravelled.

"I said Dick..."

"I heard you Father. I just don't understand."

"He died fighting..."

"NO!"

Bruce flinched back, and then his face hardened at the outburst.

Damian gathered himself, willing himself calm. "What I mean is, I understand that Grayson has died. I understand how he died. What I do not understand is why he remains so."

Bruce reached for Damian’s hands. "Because that's what happens when people die Damian."

He could hear the slight hitch and change in his father’s breathing pattern. Subtle, but not to one such as he. Lies.

"Not always. Grandfather does not submit to death. And he did not allow Mother or me to either." Damian’s voice was rising with indignation on each word. "Or you. Dick didn't..."

Bruce pulled Damian into an embrace so tight it choked him. “I’m sorry Damian. I am so, so sorry, but this is how it is.”

* * *

 

"This situation is unacceptable, Titus." Damian stood behind his desk as he addressed the dog. Spread out in front of him were sheaves of papers; drawings he’d made. On the top was one he’d made of Dick, from memory, sat sprawled in the command chair of the Batcave, fingers templed in front of his face, obviously thinking but smiling. At the time, seeing that had enraged him. Watching Dick sit so cavalierly in such a place, treating something that was such an honour so lightly. Later, when he’d relaxed into knowing the man, the rare times he’d seen him in a mood that was as heavy as the cape his Father had worn would cause a twinge near his heart. An unfamiliar feeling, one that had taken all his skills to decipher; love. 

"You would think father did not care for Grayson at all..."

The dog whined lightly. 

"No, Titus, you are correct. Despite his behaviour I do believe Father cares for him." He crossed behind the desk to the fireplace and knelt down beside the mastiff, wrapping an arm around its strong neck. “Which is why I cannot understand why he is being so negligent in the matter.” He mulled the idea over. “Is it possible that Father's quest for me is the reason that Grayson remains in a grave?" 

Ttt.

He sucked his tongue against his teeth and stared into the flames. 

"Even though it was a ruse, Grayson did not accept deaths dominion over my Father." He thought back to the night a shambling zombie clone of Batman had pulled itself out of a Lazarus Pit in front of the two of them. 

"And even with all evidence and opinion against him, even the Drake boy did not accept death's inevitability as easily as my Father has." He made a moue, as though the words dirtied his mouth. There had been ugly scenes. Dick had needed a body to believe his Father could be rescued from death, but Drake had not entertained the idea that death could touch him at all. 

"How then, could I do anything less?" He scratched the dog’s ears lightly. "And if ever it comes again, I will need an ally willing to do what needs to be done. Father obviously cannot be trusted to truly protect my life... Titus, we must be the ones to restore Grayson." 

* * *

Damian’s arms burned.

Locating a pit had been easy, done from his computer and his desk, but this, this part hurt. He’d never dug a grave before, never attempted to move two tonnes of dirt by himself. He’d done hours of pointless physical action, when he was a child and still learning, but all of that hadn’t had the same weight as this.

And worse, it had never scared him. 

He’d faced criminals and ghosts and zombies and known he would best them all. Death had been an afterthought in his grandfather’s house and he was more than familiar with the sight of dead bodies; but the further down into the dirt he moved, the more a sense he wasn’t familiar with soaked up his spine; dread. Grayson was dead, he knew that. He had fought against it, but it had never seemed real. And the closer he got to the casket, the closer he got to seeing, to knowing, the less he wanted to. 

The shovel scraped against something solid, more solid than the packed earth, and made a noise that made the fine hair on the back of his neck prickle. The cold green of the night vision goggles he wore gave everything an eerie quality. He let himself pretend that he was playing a computer game. 

“I’ll not sail little paper boats into sewers and weep over pearls.” He boasted to Titus who kept guard from above.

He stood up straight to take a breath, drawing it deep into his lungs, letting it bring him the power to make it to the end of the level, and that was when the attack came; a huge weight falling hard and black on top of him, wrapping it’s wings around him, around his arms, too close to fight and forcing him down onto the hard dirt beneath him. Death, death or some demon come to fight him for what belonged to it.

“What is this?” Death twisted him over, not giving him an inch. His arms burnt again where its claws dug into his arms; he could feel his bones bending with the strength of its clutch. 

“Well, answer me? What is this?” Death shook him with every word, snapping his head back and forth like a rag doll. 

He twisted, bringing his legs up to kick out, in the moment of frenzy he managed to free himself, scrabbling from the pit in order to try and gain an advantage, but it came after him, too fast and too heavy, pinning him to the dirt that had been excavated from the grave.

“Damian. Damian! Tell me right now.”

Batman, Father. Of course, come to stop him. He tried to elbow him in the face, but it was no good. He was still not a match for the man pinning him, he never would be. His throat felt raw and he wanted to scream.

“I have to. Nobody else will. Nobody…” loved him like I did. Like he loved me. Simple sentences, ones any child could manage but they suddenly felt too huge to vocalise. A sob forced its way out of his throat instead. Humiliating.

Batman drew back on his haunches to sit at the edge of the grave. He pushed the cowl back, showing his face. “I thought... I didn’t realise. I thought because you didn’t talk about it, you weren’t thinking about it.” His face closed over as effectively as if he’d drawn his hood down. “Stupid.” And Damian knew it wasn’t directed towards him.

“Grayson was my friend Father. He was…He would have…” He gulped. “What if it was me?”

“What?” Bruce held the boy out at arm’s length, studying his face before bringing him in, tucking his head under his chin. “When… ” Damian could feel his father’s breath hitching in the big chest. “I tried, Damian. I nearly did.” “I was mad with grief, and I did terrible things Damian. I hurt a lot of people. But Dick who helped me past that. It was Dick who helped me back.”

He stood, cradling the boy against his chest. “So now you have to give Dick the same respect.”

“But…” Damian shifted, trying to look at his Father’s face. Bruce tightened his grip, holding him even more securely.

“No, no buts Damian. This isn’t what Dick would want, I know that. All you can do is let the hurt run its course.” He scrubbed one big hand through Damian’s hair. “Tomorrow… tomorrow we’ll come up with something.”


End file.
